


Guide Me Home

by jadedhavok



Series: MCU Sentinel and Guide 'Verse [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Fury is a lying liar who lies, GFY, I am not a fan of Grant Ward, M/M, Sentinel!Clint, Sentinel/Guide, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, grant ward is going to get his ass kicked just an fyi, guide!Phil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 13:51:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6959269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadedhavok/pseuds/jadedhavok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki's scepter was able to suppress the decade-long bond between sentinel Clint Barton and guide Phil Coulson.  In the wake of New York, Clint has been told Phil is dead and Phil believes the same about Clint.  Fury is a lying liar who lies.  Clint and Phil's mission to kick Fury's ass turns into a rescue mission when shit hits the fan with Hydra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guide Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place leading up to and through CA2: The Winter Soldier, and the subsequent SHIELD episodes.
> 
> Clint's hearing is a complicated thing. Like all sentinels, Clint has enhanced hearing, but he's not capable of controlling that particular sense and usually chooses to "dial down" that sense so he gets no feedback from it. Clint's family and friends communicate with him via sign language, which I will always put into italics.
> 
> This is a direct sequel to Event Horizon, but its not necessary to read Event Horizon first to understand this fic. I suggest it, because Foggy Nelson is awesome, but its not a requirement.
> 
> This was originally written for the July 2015 Little Black Dress Rough Trade Challenge. It has been edited since then. No beta. Please keep all grammar/spelling mistakes to yourself. Questions, I'm willing to answer.

_ Prologue: _

 

Clint came to slowly.  The first thing he became aware of was the dull ache in his head, an ache that turned sharp and sent his gut rolling with nausea when he attempted to open his eyes.  Everything was too bright, and he immediately squeezed his eyes shut again.

The clothes he wore rubbed against his skin, and it felt like fire.  There was blood in his mouth, and the taste overwhelmingly sharp and metallic.  Clint groaned, and tried not to throw up.  That would be worse, so much worse.  Clint could smell burnt metal, and the stench of too many people shoved into a small space, and Natasha close by.

Where was Phil?

A hand slipped into Clint’s, small and slight with a calloused palm.  Natasha.  She squeezed once and then shifted their hands so his larger one fitted around her fist.  She signed slowly.

_ Focus on me. _

Natasha had balanced Clint’s senses in the field before.  He trusted her explicitly, and it was usually easy to pull his senses together and focus them on her.  Except Clint couldn’t.

His hearing spiked, suddenly and sharp.  He flinched and rolled away, hands coming up to shelter his ears, though that didn’t do any good.  Voices built on top of one another, a mess of sounds and pitches that Clint couldn’t separate into actual words, doors slammed and the whirl of the helicarrier’s blades thundered in Clint’s ears.  Heartbeats, hundreds of them fluttering rapidly, quick with stress and fear and anger, but not one of them belonged to Phil Coulson.

Clint forced himself to sit up, forced his eyes open against the light that seemed blinding but was likely on the dimmest setting Natasha could provide.  She was perched beside him on a cot in what looked like the medical ward, paler than he’d ever seen her.  The corners of her mouth were drawn down, her eyes wet in the corners.

“Phil.” Clint said, and he knew he’d voiced it aloud but there was no response from Natasha or anyone else.  Nat’s scent soured, grief and pain and sorrow, and Clint shook his head. “No. No, take me to Phil.  Take me to him now, Natasha.  Take me to my fucking guide  _ now _ .”

Natasha raised her hands.   _ I can’t _ .

Clint shut his eyes and turned his attention inward.  He forced himself to let go of the outside world and shut off all of his senses, until there was nothing to see or hear or smell or touch.  Between one breath and the next, he fell into the meditative state that linked him with his spirit animal.

The hawk was circling the sky of the dream-like spirit realm.  It dived, suddenly, and Clint was carried along.  Its keen eyes searched for any sign of the wolf, and let out a shrill cry when nothing could be found.  Clint reached for his bond, the tether that connected him to Phil.  Loki had found a way to suppress the bond, to suppress Clint’s sentinel and true self without suppressing his enhanced senses in the process.  He wasn’t surprised to find his bond with Phil was weak, tattered, hurt.

It was all of those things, but it wasn’t broken.

“Find them.” Clint commanded.

The hawk dove and searched.

When Clint opened his eyes again, the pupils were blown and his breathing was erratic.  Natasha took a deep breath and slipped off the cot, baking away.  Her eyes darted to the red panic button by the door that would summon an alarm.

“Loki did this.  I’m going to kill him.” Clint vowed.

It was his last moment of coherent thought before he released himself to the wild, furious will of the sentinel inside of himself.

 

_ Chapter One: _

 

Clint was surprised that Laura had decided to introduce herself to Matt and Foggy, and even more so that she’d allowed the children to be seen by them.  Natasha guarded their kids so fiercely that only a very small handful of people in the world even knew they had children, and he hadn’t anticipated Laura introducing them to Matt and Foggy without any warning.  

Foggy absolutely adored children, and both Lila and Cooper had taken an immediate shining to him.  It wasn’t surprising.  Almost everyone that met Foggy adored him, and Foggy had an aura that was very similar to Phil’s.  The kids had taken Phil’s death about as well as could be expected; they were faring better than Clint but were still upset.  They were more prone to temper tantrums and acting out than they ever had been before, which Xavier had assured them it was completely normal behavior in children that had unexpectedly lost a parent.  Phil might not have been biologically related to either of them, but he’d still been their papa.

_ Daddy,  _ Lila signed, walking over to Clint and raising her arms to be picked up.  He easily settled her on his hip, ignoring the raised eyebrow he got from Foggy.

“Yes, pumpkin?”

_ Will you color with me? _

“Of course.”

“And help me with my math homework?” Cooper asked, speaking with both his hands and his voice.  He immediately abandoned Nat in favor of Clint.  It wasn’t favoritism… Or, rather, it was more about making sure Clint wasn’t favoring Lila over Cooper than it was about Cooper favoring one of his parents over another.

“Sure.  What does Professor McCoy have you working on?”

“We’re supposed to be learning our times tables.”

Clint waved at Foggy and added for Matt’s benefit. “Fatherhood calls.  I’ll see you both later.  Laura, you want me to start dinner?”

Laura spoke to Clint entirely with her hands.  She’d struggled with learning ASL when she’d first met Clint, and had forced herself not to resort to speaking with him vocally.  The habit had stuck, and she rarely spoke to him aloud unless it was for the benefit of others.  _ If you’d peel the potatoes, that would be wonderful.  But, please, stay away from the oven.  You burn toast. _

Clint made a face at her, and ushered the kids out of the room and down the hall.  Clint had a nice apartment he’d shared with Phil, one with a great view of the city and a doorman with a great sense of humor.  Clint hadn’t returned to it since Phil had died, and instead stayed with the Romanovs.  They had a suite all to themselves in the east-wing of Xavier Mansion, the same wing that housed the professors and other adults that lived full-time at the Mansion while the west-wing housed all the students that boarded there.   Nat’s suite was complete with a small kitchenette that Laura was able to work utter magic in.

Cooper sat down at the kitchen table with his math homework, and Lila sat across from him with her crayons and coloring books, and they spent nearly thirty minutes there before Nat and Laura made it back from their meeting.  Clint made sure he had all the potatoes peeled, and Laura patted him on the shoulder in appreciation.  Her stomach brushed against his back as she squeezed by him, and Clint tried not to freeze up.

Four months ago, Clint had been ecstatic to learn that their fifth attempt at in vitro had been successful.  There had been two failed pregnancies after Lila, but the third time had been the charm.  Phil had been so damn happy, beaming from ear to ear.  He’d been a great dad, always knew what to do and say and act when a lot of the time Clint felt like he was just bullshitting his way through parenting like he bullshitted his way through life.  Then, Loki had happened.  Clint had lost part of himself, and Phil had died, and there was a baby that would come into this world at some point and Clint would be expected to be a parent to it without Phil there to fix all his fuck ups.

He thought about leaving.  Nat and Laura were competent parents, and they were awesome moms, and they didn’t need Clint there.  Clint loved his children, though.  They process they had used to fertilize the eggs involved blending the sperm so Clint and Phil each had a fifty/fifty chance at being the biological parent, but Clint knew Cooper and Lila were his.  He could literally smell their genetic connection to him, and his sentinel took that  _ very  _ seriously.  The only reason he hadn’t blown his head off yet was that he wasn’t going to abandon those kids, he  _ wasn’t _ .

It was something to cling to, and Clint didn’t have much else.

The problem was that his bond didn’t feel  _ gone _ .  It was hurting, and broken, and tattered, but it was still  _ there _ .  There were times he reached through it and thought maybe, just maybe, someone was reaching back.  That Phil was on the other end, trying to reach him too.  Clint had talked to widowed sentinels, but what they described themselves feeling was  _ nothing _ like what Clint felt.  They’d all had relatively weak bonds, too, and were able to bond again after losing their first guide.  Clint’s bond with Phil had been strong and robust and  _ thriving _ , until Loki had used that motherfucking scepter to destroy it.  Clint was sure that if their bond hadn’t been harmed that he would have followed Phil into death.  He was tempted, every day, to do so anyway.  Nat had taken away all of his guns and even his bow, and he hadn’t protested at all.

During dinner, Clint never ate much.  He forced down enough that Nat didn’t glare at him, and made sure to eat the vegetables so Lila wouldn’t decide she randomly hated broccoli despite having eaten it without complaint before, but otherwise spent most of the meal pushing his food around his plate.  Halfway through dinner, however, Laura nudged Clint’s foot with her own and Clint looked up at her.

Laura set down her silverware to free up her hands.   _ I visited Doctor Gray today. _

Clint’s heart pounded in his chest so loudly he was sure everyone could hear it.  Nat certainly could, from the eyebrow she rose at him.  All he could think was something terrible had happened.  “Is there… Is something wrong?”

_ No,  _ Laura signed, and then started speaking along with signing.  “But I’m coming up on twenty-weeks.  We need to discuss whether… whether we’ll terminate the pregnancy or not.  I know it hurts you.” Laura gently touched Clint’s hand and he had to close his eyes and focus on breathing.  She waited until he opened them again to continue.  “Doctor Gray ran a genetic test for me, so that we could be fully informed.”

There was no way Clint could be a parent by himself.  If he had been a woman, and the one pregnant, he would probably have chosen to have an abortion after Phil died.  But, he wasn’t alone.  This wasn’t just  _ his _ child, it was Nat and Laura’s as well.  It wasn’t fair to ask them to give up a child they both wanted, because he was hurting.

“What did she tell you, советчик?” Nat asked, and Clint read the words as they formed on her lips.  She continued to eat like nothing was wrong, but she’d always been good at that sort of thing.  Clint envied her ability to hold herself together no matter what.  She was stronger than him.

“It’s a boy, and he has the guide gene like Lila.  She also ran a paternity test at my request.”

They’d never tested the paternity of Lila or Cooper.  They didn’t have to; both Clint and Natasha were skilled enough to smell genetic links.

“Is he mine, or…”

“He’s Phil’s.”

Clint let out a noise like a wounded animal.  He didn’t mean to, but her words hit him like a shot to the gut.  He doubled over and tried to breath, but found that he couldn’t.

Clint felt Lila’s voice call to him and heard her heartbeat pick up.  He could hear Cooper climbing from his chair.  Nat reached him first, sliding into Clint’s lap easily.  He wrapped both arms around her waist and fisted the back of her shirt in his hands.  He didn’t cry, but it was close.  He leant his forehead against her shoulder and she ran her fingers through his hair and hummed one of the Russian lullabies she often sang to the children when they were babies.  He let the vibrations of her humming sink into his chest and relax him.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said when he could finally speak again.  He reached out a hand to sooth his daughter, who was getting more upset by the moment. “I’m okay, Lila, I am.  I’m sorry.”

Laura shook her head.  She went back to just signing.   _ It should have been a discussion between just us three. I wasn’t thinking. _

“You can’t… No. No, I won’t tell you what you can and can’t do.  This is your body, and he’s your baby, too.”

_ I want to keep him. _ Nat signed.

Laura nodded.  _ I do, too.  But, I don’t want to cause you more pain.  If you cannot handle this, that is okay. _

“I can.  He’s  _ Phil’s _ .  Oh, fuck.  He’s Phil’s, of course I want him.”

_ Okay.  We’ll need to clean out the spare room.  You aren’t using it anyway.  Can you and Nat do it this weekend? That way we can start getting Lila settled in there right away. _

“Whatever you want.”

Phil’s baby, Phil’s  _ son _ .  Cooper had Clint’s blonde hair and Laura’s green eyes, and Lila had Laura’s dark hair and Clint’s dark eyes, but it’s still easy, so easy, to picture a little boy with Phil’s blue eyes and Phil’s nose and Phil’s crooked smile.

“His middle name should be Philip.  Not the first, that wouldn’t be right, but his middle.  Is that okay?”

Nat pressed a kiss to Clint’s head.  She didn’t sign, but Clint felt her speak against his skin and had no trouble understanding her. “That’s perfect.”

~*~

Three-thousand miles away, Phil Coulson sat in the front seat of a remodeled red Corvette.  There was an open letter in his hands, but he didn’t need to read it to know what it said.  He’d already read it, more than a dozen times, and had the words seared into his mind.

Fury had passed him the note months ago, when Phil was still in recovery.  He’s apologized, unable to look Phil in the eye, and he’d known it would be bad before he ever broke the seal.

Clint, he was told, had been left brain-damaged.  Whatever Loki’s scepter had done to him to tear their bond apart had utterly destroyed Clint’s mind, not even leaving him with enough function to remain alive off life support.  Nat had pulled the plug in Phil’s stead, and he didn’t blame her for that decision.  It was what Clint would have wanted.

Cooper and Lila had not survived the attack on New York.  Natasha had taken her guide and gone to ground, and Phil had seen neither hide nor hair of either one.  Again, he didn’t blame them.  Nat must have been operating on pure instinct, after losing her children and best friend in one fell swoop, and Laura must have been utterly devastated.  He couldn’t hate them, when he wanted to crawl into a hole and die himself.

Besides, Nat had left him a note.

He folded it back up carefully, and slipped it back beneath Lola’s visor.  It was the same place he kept a picture of Clint and the children, Cooper with his crooked teeth and Lila in pigtails.  His life, destroyed because of Loki.  His sentinel gone, his children gone.  What else did he have, but work?  So, he went back to work.  He accepted the jobs that Fury gave him, took charge of the team.  He appreciated May’s sign of support and loyalty, and acknowledged that there was a fair bit of maneuvering by Fury there as well.  Fury had always wanted Phil and May to bond, but it hadn’t happened before Clint and it wasn’t going to happen after him.

“What are you doing?” Skye asked, crawling over into Lola’s seat beside him.  “Thinking about taking her for a ride?”

Phil smiled and shook his head.  “No, no. Just… Thinking.”

Skye craned her neck to look at the picture. “Wow, cute kids.  Are they yours?”

“They were.  They… died in the Battle for New York.”

Skye’s face fell. “I’m sorry.  You… lost your sentinel then, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes.  I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay.  You’re curious. I get it.  His name was Clint.”

He handed her the photo.  She frowned down at it.

“Him?”

Phil nodded.

“This guy, right here.  Hawkeye.”

Phil went very, very still. “How… How do you know his call name?”

“Dude, he’s, like, famous.  The Avengers!  He’s one of the ones that helped fight during the Battle for New York.  But, he’s not dead.  He’s all over the tabloids.  People think he’s banging the redhead that no one can find any information on, the one that’s responsible for taking out the portal.”

Phil stared at her. “He’s… He’s not dead?”

“Nope.  Who told you he was?  Shouldn’t you be able to like,” Skye waved a hand, “Like, tell, or something?”

Phil got out of the car, and strode quickly towards the cockpit.  Skye ran after him, calling his name, but he ignored her.  He pushed into the cockpit and said to May.

“New course.  Head for New York.”

May raised an eyebrow at him, but he wasn’t in the mood.

“Now.  Get me to New York  _ now _ .”

“What’s going on?” May asked.

Skye caught up with them. “Hey, May, did you know that Phil’s sentinel was Hawkeye?  Like, Avengers Hawkeye.”

May frowned. “Yes.”

“Fury told me he was dead, and Skye says he’s alive. What do you know?” Phil demanded.

May’s eyes narrowed. “Fury told me he was in a coma and they were still hoping he’d wake up.  He told you Barton was dead?”

“Yes. Clint and our children.  I need to be in New York, May.”

“I’ll get you there.” May agreed, already setting them on the new course.

~*~

Clint was outside with Cooper, teaching him how to do a proper layup, when he went utterly, completely still.

Clint couldn’t hear… Or, rather, he heard everything at once and couldn’t differentiate between the sounds without a great deal of effort and straining of his senses that was painful and exhausting enough that he rarely considered it worth it.  But, there was a sound that Clint had always been able to hear, always find, always trace, without any effort at all.

Clint had spent the last three months listening to nothing but mindless static, broken only by the heartbeats he had trained himself to be able to hear: Nat’s, Laura’s, the kids’.  But never Phil’s.  Sometimes he’d strain his hearing and endure the pain, hoping to find that elusive sound, but for all that Clint had been searching for it constantly he had been without success.  He’d anticipated that he would spend the rest of his life searching for Phil’s heartbeat without success.  Except, quite suddenly, he could hear it.

It was miles away, but Clint could hear Phil’s heartbeat.  He dropped the basketball he was holding and took off running, expanding his senses as he did so.  He heard Cooper shout behind him, but Cooper would be fine.  Clint could smell Nat as she came outside and began chasing after him.

They ran down the road together, until a familiar bright red Corvette came into view.  Clint stumbled to a stop, and then fell to his knees.  Phil.  _ Phil _ .  Nat’s hand was on his shoulder, her nails biting into the skin and keeping him steady.  The smell of burnt rubber told Clint that Lola’s tires squealed when the driver hit the brakes and she came to a stop mere feet from Clint and Natasha.  The passenger door opened and Phil stumbled out.

Clint launched himself at his guide, and Phil caught him easily, wrapping his arms around Clint.  He didn’t understand; he didn’t understand  _ at all _ .  He’d been told Phil was dead.  Why would Fury lie about that? Why?

“You’re alive.” Clint choked out. “Oh, fuck, you’re alive.”

“I’m sorry.” Phil whispered the words against Clint’s neck, and Clint kissed him because what the fuck was he apologizing for the moron.

“You’re  _ alive _ .”

The driver was climbing out of the car, and Clint looked up at her sharply.  It took only a second to recognize Melinda May.  She was one of Phil’s oldest friends, and a trusted ally.  He relaxed.  May and Nat greeted one another and shook hands.

Phil pulled away, just far enough to get his hands up between them.  _ Cooper _ ?   _ They said Cooper and Lila were… _

Clint shook his head. “No, no, they’re fine.  They’re home and they’re fine, I promise, who told you that?”

_ Fury _

“That  _ fucker _ .  He said you were dead.”

_ To be fair, I was. Briefly. _

May said something; Clint felt the vibrations of her words as she spoke but she was too far away for him to make anything out.  He looked up at her sharply, and she repeated herself.  “Three days is not  _ brief _ .”

“Three days?  You were dead for  _ three days _ ?  How do you… how do you come back from that?”

Phil was frowning at May. “No, he said… he said seven minutes.”

“It was three days, Phil.  Believe me, I was there.  We need to get inside. There’s a  _ lot _ to talk about.”

“If that’s true, then Fury has a lot to answer for.” Nat said.

Clint nodded. He couldn’t agree more.

“I’m going to kill him.” He announced.

“I’m going to help.” Phil promised.

Clint laughed, and touched Phil’s face because he really, honestly couldn’t believe that Phil was  _ there _ .  “I missed you so much.”

“I love you.” Phil whispered, and Clint kissed him again, because yeah.

They’d been torn apart, and fucked over, and about destroyed, but they were together again and there would be  _ hell  _ to pay.

**Author's Note:**

> Hierarchy and Pairing Reference
> 
> Alpha Sentinel Prime Erik Lehnserr and Alpha Guide Prime Charles Xavier  
> The Alpha Pair of the United States
> 
> Alpha Sentinel Matt Murdock and Alpha Guide Foggy Nelson  
> The Alpha Pair of the Atlantic East Coast
> 
> Sentinel Natasha Romanov and Guide Laura Romanov (Yes, I have Natasha married to Clint's wife from Age of Ultron. It makes more sense this way, shut up.)  
> Sentinel Clint Barton and Guide Phil Coulson  
> Sentinel Melina May  
> Guide Skye Smith  
> Sentinel Jemma Simmons and Guide Leopold Fitz  
> Sentinel Nick Fury and Sentinel Maria Hill
> 
> Steve is both a sentinel and a guide. He was born a guide, the serum made him a sentinel. Its complicated.
> 
> Alpha Sentinel Alexander Pierce and Alpha Guide Jasper Sitwell  
> Alpha Pair of DC


End file.
